DECT, Wi-FI, and WLAN wireless systems and health

Mother Heather Schreck said she only discovered an intruder had hacked into her baby monitor when she was awoken in the middle of night by the sound of a voice. “I was just absolutely shocked to see that somebody could get into my house so easily,” she said. Picking up her mobile phone, which was streaming the baby monitor, she noticed the images were moving erratically as if someone was changing the viewing position of the camera. “About the time I saw it moving, I also heard a voice again start screaming at my daughter. He was screaming ‘wake up baby, wake up baby’,” Ms Schreck said. Her partner, Adam Schreck, said he was deeply disturbed by the discovery. “You kind of do feel violated in a way,” he said.

Rising numbers of infants lack the motor skills needed to play with building blocks because of an “addiction” to tablet computers and smartphones, according to teachers. Many children aged just three or four can “swipe a screen” but have little or no dexterity in their fingers after spending hours glued to iPads, it was claimed. Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers also warned how some older children were unable to complete traditional pen and paper exams because their memory had been eroded by overexposure to screen-based technology.They called on parents to crackdown on tablet computer use and even turn off wi-fi at night to address the problem. The comments were made after Ofcom figures showed the proportion of households with tablet computers more than doubled from 20 to 51 per cent last year.
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After thousands of studies, the most that experts worldwide can determine is the radiation used for wi-fi networks, digital devices, cordless phones and cell phones is a “possible” cause of cancer. With such uncertainty, OLIVIA WANNAN asks if we are using this technology with enough caution.

As in many countries around the world, the debate about long- wave radiation has come to a head in New Zealand through the recent introduction of wi-fi networks in schools.The energy waves have been harnessed for more than a century to bring radio and television to our home, track objects by radar, microwave our food, and connect us through texts, phone calls and the internet.Yet the World Health Organisation lists this radiation as a “possible” cause of cancer, based on research showing a link between heavy cellphone use and an increased risk of developing brain tumours.Kapiti Coast parent Damon Wyman is a vocal advocate for caution. He became aware of the possible health effects of wireless technology after losing his son Ethan, 10, to cancer last August.Ethan died 11 months after being diagnosed with two brain tumours. Three months earlier, he had been given a wi-fi connected iPad.His parents later discovered he had been falling asleep with the device under his pillow.Even though it was on standby, it was still emitting bursts of radiation as it tried to connect to the router, Mr Wyman said.Doctors who saw Ethan said the tumours appeared to be about four months old, Mr Wyman said. “We’re not saying that caused it, but it seems like a bit of a coincidence.”
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LOS ALTOS, Calif. — The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.

But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.

Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools don’t mix.
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The answer to that is yes according to a new paper by Olle Johansson. Here is an English translation:

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Thanks to the so-called PISA* (OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment) survey, in Sweden we now know: student scores in maths, reading comprehension and natural sciences are plummeting. The results are prompting rage in Swedish schools. Something is wrong.

The government response is to force all students to go through another school year. In addition, a series of panic measures has been initiated by the authorities. But do not expect schools to be given peace and quiet, so that they may be able to figure out how to get things to work while dismantling those gadgets and administrative ‘reins’ that do not.

For years schools have undergone a multitude of changes and been given new assignments, including being forced to monitor more grade control data and using new and more administration. Some changes are good, some bad. Changes include an enormous amount of computerized teaching where students via their apps, mobile phones and tablets are
supposed to gain new knowledge. Pedagogy innovators have deleted textbooks and pencils, blackboards and pointers, and instead replaced them with new wireless e-readers
and cell phones. Academics, such as myself, have many times – usually completely unheard – raised a warning finger to the educational establishment.

Today it is very difficult to be a teacher and take responsibility for teaching in the classroom where students’ cell phones are constantly ringing, text messages are being
sent back and forth, and surfing the entire time online or playing games through iPhones and iPads. All this when students really should be working on their school assignments.
In Sweden, there have been several cases where the teacher was reprimanded because he or she “violated the students’ privacy” after taking cell phones from students, while
other teachers have been criticized for being too strict with students for not allowing them to do what they want during school hours.
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UPPER Sturt Primary School is going without wi-fi in favour of valuing local bushland, but the decision does not compromise the value of the internet in children’s learning, an educator says.

Principle Barb Jones said the decision for the school to not have wi-fi as part of its environmental and safety stance, was made in combination with the local community.

When she arrived at the school of 27 students, parents approached her about their concerns over the long-term exposure to wi-fi, because research had been published about the possibility of health problems. After readingthe research, Ms Jones began a discussion with staff aaans it was decided not to install wi-fi but to data cabling instead. “The parents had done lots of research from Canada and they sent us information.” she said.

“I looked at that research and I thought there was something there – especially for girls in the area of reproduction. This does not mean we do not value the internet or that children are unable to access the internet.”

The so-called Internet of things, in which even the most mundane devices can communicate with a PC, tablet or smartphone, is the next trend.

By Chris O’Brien

January 4, 2014, 6:56 p.m.

To glimpse the future of consumer electronics, get a grip on the world’s first Internet-connected tennis racket. With tiny sensors embedded in the handle, the racket measures a player’s strokes, topspin and just about everything else that happens when the ball is struck. All that information is instantly relayed via a wireless Bluetooth connection to a smartphone app. The player can later view and analyze it on the Web. “It’s going to be a huge change for the tennis player,” said Thomas Otton, director of communications for Babolat, the French tennis company that invented the original cow-gut racket strings 140 years ago. “They are going to have access to all kinds of information and data that will help them progress much faster and have more fun. It’s a true revolution.”
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Google looks to tap Australian telcos for its global balloon WiFi revolution

MITCHELL BINGEMANN
The Australian
January 03, 2014 12:00AM

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TELSTRA is among a group of telcos that have held high-level talks with Google about working together on a revolutionary project to beam wireless internet signals from stratospheric balloons into hard-to-reach and underserved rural and regional areas. Called Project Loon, the ambitious plan uses high-altitude balloons equipped with antennas to beam WiFi signals capable of delivering 3G-like internet speeds to homes and businesses down below. Tests of Project Loon are under way in New Zealand and will be extended to Tasmania by mid-year, but the internet giant needs regulatory approvals and help from local telecommunication companies to get the project off the ground.

Every year since 1976, Project Censored, our nation’s oldest news-monitoring group–a university-wide project at Sonoma State University founded by Carl Jensen, directed for many years by Peter Phillips, and now under the leadership of Mickey Huff–has produced a Top-25 list of under reported news stories and a book, Censored, dedicated to the stories that ought to be top features on the nightly news, but that are missing because of media bias and self-censorship.

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14. Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis: As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes, schools, and workplaces, government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary. Extensive deployment of “smart grid” technology hastens this looming health crisis.

By now many residents in the United States and Canada have smart meters—which transfer detailed information on residents’ electrical usage back to the utility every few minutes—installed on their dwellings. Each meter has an electronic cellular transmitter that uses powerful bursts of electromagnetic radio frequency (RF) radiation to communicate with nearby meters, which together form an interlocking network. Such information can easily be used to determine individual patterns of behavior based on power consumption.

The neuroscientist and medical director of the Psychiatric University Hospital Ulm, Professor Manfred Spitzer, met with intense press coverage about his new best-seller “Digitale Demenz. Wie wir uns und unsere Kinder um den Verstand bringen” (Digital dementia. How we drive us and our children mad) and his trenchant theses. Referring to many neurological findings and supplementing new findings Spitzer reinforces in his book previous research of reputable media experts saying that the too frequent use of the Internet can make people dumb. He never denigrated juvenile and adult Internet users however. Reacting to the spiteful attacks by the press, he said in an interview: “I do not pathologize but I state: Where there are effects there are also risks and side effects.”1 However, Spitzer does not just express warnings; he also shows what parents, teachers and politicians can do to protect our youth.

The brain uses sleep to wash away the waste toxins built up during a hard day’s thinking, researchers have shown.

The US team believe the “waste removal system” is one of the fundamental reasons for sleep.

Their study, in the journal Science, showed brain cells shrink during sleep to open up the gaps between neurons and allow fluid to wash the brain clean.

They also suggest that failing to clear away some toxic proteins may play a role in brain disorders.

One big question for sleep researchers is why do animals sleep at all when it leaves them vulnerable to predators?

It has been shown to have a big role in the fixing of memories in the brain and learning, but a team at the University of Rochester Medical Centre believe that “housework” may be one of the primary reasons for sleep.

“The brain only has limited energy at its disposal and it appears that it must choose between two different functional states – awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up,” said researcher Dr Maiken Nedergaard.

“You can think of it like having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you can’t really do both at the same time.”

Cordless phones are more of a health risk to young people than mobiles,
according to new university research.

In a study of almost 400 Wellington intermediate pupils, adjunct Victoria
University researcher Mary Redmayne found pre-teens were more likely to
suffer headaches if they made long or frequent calls on cordless phones or
cellphones.

The research, to be published in theEnvironmental Health journal this week,
also found high users of cordless phones more commonly experienced
tinnitus, or ringing in their ears.

It’s official: “Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis” is the #14 story in the new 2013 edition of the book, ‘Project Censored’, which covers the top 25 New Stories of the year that are the most important but least reported by corporate media.

14. Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis
As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes schools and workplaces government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary…

Excerpt from the blog Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Dariusz Leszczynski:

Opinions, recently expressed by Rodney Croft, the newly elected member of the Main Commission of ICNIRP International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection) and Director of ACEBR (Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research), are worrisome. Especially in the context of his influential position in Australian RF (radio frequency radiation) research that got in 2012 and 2013 ca. $7,500,000 to do research on RF and human health.
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Just in case readers have missed the comments to the last message “More pseudo “independent” research in Australia?” here is the comment from Dariusz Lesczcynski. See his qualifications here and his blog here.

It seems that Australia, because of recent research funding for studies on RF and health, is becoming “Mecca” for RF research. And it has a “prophet” – Rodney – speaking that: “there’s a pretty strong consensus that there’s not a problem in adults”…”We’ve got no reason to believe that there’ll be a greater effect in children than in adults.” It is absolutely embarassing that such statements can be made by a scientist who is considered as expert in the field. There is absolutely no consensus among the scientists. Exception might be a pre-selected private club called ICNIRP, of which Rodney has recently become a member. Nothing else but, unfortunately, Voodoo Science comments from Rodney…
Dariusz Lesczcynski

Marshall Roberts is an IT specialist who has performed research on the potential health effects of wireless networking in schools because he has children and is concerned about the astronomical uptake of wireless technologies in schools. Marshall wrote a comprehensive report on this issue which he sent to the Department of Education (DoE) in Tasmania requesting answers. SSMA contacted Marshall to see if he would be willing to write a guest blog for our website because our children are being exposed involuntarily and without consent to wireless RF every day 24x 7 starting at home from smart meters and other wireless devices as well as at school (e.g. iPads, laptops, wireless routers etc.). Marshall kindly agreed and his blog follows:
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This video follows the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency’s advice (ARPANSA Factsheet 14 – updated June 2013) on reducing wireless radiation – and explores the implications of children using wireless devices such as iPads, at home and at school.

The video includes an explanation of SAR values, a real life test of iPads vs iPhones and ARPANSA’s practical advice on how to reduce exposure from mobile and other wireless devices.

TORONTO, Aug. 15, 2013 /CNW/ – This afternoon the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario voted at its annual general meeting that student cell phones should be turned off and stored during school hours, unless a teacher gives permission.

The vote was part of a series of motions requesting that radiation from cell phones and WiFi be recognized as a potential workplace hazard for teachers.

“There is cause for concern for members’ health and safety, especially women,” said Sandra Wash, a teacher representing Peel District who spoke at the meeting.